Balancing creativity

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be creative. I’ve been playing instruments, I’ve been singing and, most of all, I’ve been writing. I used to write stories in the back of my notebooks during classes, I would write longer stories on the computer in the corner of my room back home, I would write blogs when I sat on the train to travel between my home back home and my actual home and still, when I get restless, I take out my laptop or a piece of paper and I scrawl down everything that I want to scrawl down.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not good at it. Especially my stories are of a spectacularly low quality. I once took part in a creative writing class at school and listening to other people’s work I realised once again who absolutely useless I am at it.

The same keeps happening with music. I’ve always been writing songs or just playing random songs I’ve heard on the radio. I taught myself the basics of playing a keyboard and I used to have lessons on my guitar, but.. I never got to that point where I actually mastered it.

For a long time this bothered me. If I was going to do this, I thought, I wanted it to be good. For my mom’s wedding I got up on stage and I sang together with my incredibly talented sister and brother because that’s what she liked. Afterwards I received recordings of our performance and I was shocked at how bad it was. I’m not sure if it was actually that bad or if I just had insanely high expectations but I think it is safe to say that I’m no Taylor Swift or *insert random artist with a lot of talent*.

However, I’ve come to a conclusion. I love writing, I love making music and I love singing. I love creating and I love the feeling of being so entranced doing something that you forget all about time and worries and everything that’s bothering you. Why would I stop doing that because I’m not at A-level skill? I mean, this isn’t one of those ‘practice makes perfect’ speeches, because I honestly just don’t think I have it in me, but that’s okay, you see: It’s okay not to excel. As long as I enjoy these things, why would I stop?

So, I write what I like and I sing whenever I feel like it and I leave excellence to luckier souls. I hope that, whoever you are and whatever you love doing and whether you are any good at it or not, you will keep doing the same. Don’t let failure stop you, don’t let mediocrity stop and don’t let yourself stop you.